Category - Media

Prologue: I wrote this piece as part of a presentation I made to visiting students from Holland. It assembles my thoughts on how current events pertaining to corruption and the rule of law might transform Brazil. I amply plagiarize my previous work. GM
A Conflagration of Corruption in Brazil – Will it Lead to Transformation?
Over the past five years or so, Brazil has witnessed a transformation in the rule of law quite unlike anywhere else. Much of this revolution seems to have started with a legislative vote-buying scheme that Carlos Pereira...

Chanelling Demands
Crisis can be a key catalyst for reform, but all depends on the ability to effectively channel citizen demands and the responsiveness of key political actors. The Channel is clear – the “popular initiative” (Art.62 of the 1988 Constitution), which requires signatures by 1% of the electorate (1.34 million citizens) spread across at least 5 states, with signatures in each state representing at least 0.3% of its electors.*
Political Responsiveness
The problem is responsiveness. Today, Contas Abertas reports...

Today, several million people are taking to the streets to protest a corrupt political system and a rent-seeking, bloated state. Let’s make this clear; Dilma is a poor political leader and her governments have precipitated nothing short of an economic fallout. But she is not the problem incarnate. My wife (and son) is at the protest in Copacabana Rio de Janeiro not because of ‘Dilma’, nor because of ‘the government’ per se, but because my wife and millions of others are fed up with what they see to be corrupt, wasteful and misguided...